


Bedroom Hymns

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait), vividwings



Series: Ars De Esse Parenti [5]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Addiction, Drug Use, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:13:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vividwings/pseuds/vividwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sins of the father are also the sins of the daughter. The story of Lucrece, daughter of Fulgrim, with all its twists and turns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedroom Hymns

**Author's Note:**

> _This is as good a place to fall as any_
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> _We can built our altar here_
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> _Make me your Maria_
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> _I’m already on my knees_  
>  -Florence+the Machine, Bedroom Hymns

All I ever wanted was to be wanted.

Isn’t that what everyone wants, to some extent? To be needed? To be desired? To have someone willing to walk over broken glass and hot coals for them?

I wasn’t like Althyrea with her ambition. She had a hole where her heart should be after Sejanus died. I learned that later, far too late to do anything or warn anyone. I wanted to give my heart, I wanted to have people enjoy it and give me theirs in return. I had so much to give, or so I thought. I could give pleasure and happiness and love. I did love them, most of the people I slept with. It wasn’t all-consuming, it wasn’t a fairytale, but we all wanted the same things and there is kindness in giving in to it. There is compassion in pleasure, or so I thought.

But here I am, broken and bent and bleeding. Bleeding. There’s a needle on the floor. It was in my arm.

How long have I been lying here?

I try to focus. It is so hard, though, to see through the fog that encloses my mind like a pleasurable mist, tugging me back to morphia-induced dreamland. What was I doing before this? I saw a bottle, half-empty. It had been full last… last I remembered. Something had made me sad, angry, helpless, and I ran to the needle like a child to her mother. How much did I use? Half the bottle? No, that should have killed me. I knew my tolerances by now. Had I been trying to kill myself?

The high is fading, and with the clarity of sobriety comes the gaping maw of fear at the base of my stomach. There was something, something out there I need to be afraid of, something I cannot fight.

I look out the artificial window and I remember.

Terra is below me, and its hives are burning. The atmosphere is so thick with smoke it appears stained and dirty. The palace, visible from space, is dotted with the light of raging infernos. The halls I played in as a child are broken and rent and full of slaughtered servants and guards. Servants who might have once brought me food or helped me dress and guards that had kept me safe.

The whispering madness that took them all is back, telling me to return to the bottle, to take just a bit, to find out where Eidolon or Lucius or my father is and get on my knees. It’s not my father. That thing that wears my father’s body like a fashionable gown, altering it to suit its needs, that is what leads us now. I thought the changes were his own at first, perhaps worked by Apothecary Bile or the blessings of the powers we now served. But no, he is something else entirely and that thing seemed to delight in my misery.

I found out last night. I realized what was going on when I looked into his eyes and found something missing. He felt _different_. Not just the changes in his form, but the way he moved. When he first took me to bed it was the most beautiful thing. It felt safe and perfect and _right_. But now… the thing inside my father’s body didn’t love me like he did. I realized with it _inside_ me. It saw, it noticed, but it didn’t care.

That was why I took half the bottle. I wonder if I can take more. I wonder if it would even kill me.

 _You are too entertaining to die_ , said a voice in my mind. It was neither female nor male, but had aspects of both, impossibly smooth and soothing. _But go ahead. Your attempts amuse me._

“Even we can die. If Ferrus Manus could fall, so can I.”

_Ferrus Manus was not favored by one of the True Gods._

“Can I turn down your favors?”

_Not at this point in the game._

A broken sob tears itself from my throat. This is where my path had led me. Each step along the way had seemed so natural, so simple, but looking back… It was a path into damnation. I fall to my knees on the floor and pick up the bottle with shaking fingers. There are more syringes on the nightstand, I know. I had once kept them secret, but I have slipped out of the habit long ago. It didn’t matter. Everyone else was on similar substances or stranger.

_You can flee there but it will not soothe you for long, and it will not kill you. As long as I have the power to save you, I will._

“I have no reason to believe you.” I reply in a halting voice. I draw out the full fifty units, the maximum dose I can with a standard syringe and ponder getting a larger one. My post-human body was already developing immunity to the stuff.

_You have every reason to believe me, my dear girl._

The needle slides into my arm with a prick of pain. I sigh as I feel the drug seize hold on my mind, dulling the guilt and misery and fear in a pleasurable haze. It is artificial but it is better than nothing. It is not happiness but it is oblivion and that is close enough.

My steps waver; I stand and totter to her bed. The silk sheets are soft against my bare skin and I relax into it with a sigh. Already the drug pulls me into the dreamlike state I savor so much. I cast my mind back from the madness of the present to the past, when everything seemed so simple and life was beautiful and nothing, nothing hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to us. We would love to hear what you thought of it. And please, share this story freely but credit us and link back to us. Thank you!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Athenya~Daughter of Fulgrim](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1957284) by [msjedimaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msjedimaster/pseuds/msjedimaster)




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